Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Is This That?

A smiling young couple, seated by the steps leading up to what
looked for all the world like the “Beanery”—the Bean family home at 1807 Santa
Clara Avenue in Alameda, California—seemed to be the very same couple as the one
I had found in another picture in Bill Bean’s unmarked collection of photographic memories. I’ve been going over this mass of photographs, over and over,
stacking them every which way, trying to find matches—or at least some sort of
discernable pattern—to help me figure out who everyone was.

Thinking I might be on to something, I took the two photos in
question and scanned them. I was hoping that a little digital magic might help
confirm the match—especially as one of the photos had that rarest of benefits:
a name and a date marked on the reverse.

Once again, my Photoshop program came to my rescue.
Enlarging the picture to twice its size, I was able to make out not only the
numbers posted to the side of the front door—1807—but I also discovered a shy
young girl hiding in the doorway.

Of course, there was no label to tell me who these two—no,
make that three—young people were. What I was hoping was that I would find a
match in the second photo I had scanned, because that photo was the one which, unbelievably, provided the sparsest
of information on the back.

This second photo bore the legend,

March 1951

D. + J.

McGinis

Of course, that was of little help—but who am I to complain
at this point? While I don’t know what the initials stand for, and while I don’t—yet—have
anyone in my database with a surname of McGinis, at least I know what names to
bestow upon this young couple, wrapped up in togs befitting an early spring day
in California.

Whether this second couple is one and the same as the first,
I am not quite sure. Once I enlarged each picture, the only possible matching
details I could find are that the two men both sport curly hair and tend to
turn out their left foot.

And the old car seems like it might be similar (or even the same as) to the one in the previous "horse rider" post. The old cars from 1932-1948 or so, didn't change much in appearance - in part due to the interrupted production caused by WWII.

If Bill Bean took the 1951 photo - he would have been in his mid-50's... so this couple is somewhat younger than he. Co-workers? Neighbors? Hmmm... Whoever they were/are, it is quite possible that any of the three are still with us today.

Well, it's a snap I won't be waiting 'til the 1950 census release for this one...I will probably be of the "forgetting" age by then...but you did give me an idea, Wendy: I can look at the city directories for Alameda and vicinities. Maybe I'll luck out and find one for 1951.

Iggy, that's a good point about that second photo. It could be either way...although I think the woman's makeup and glasses frame style translates, in my mind, to "older" only because I'm looking back at it from my vantage point of a later date. (My brain, now, is thinking, "Old fashioned" but it certainly wasn't so when those styles first came out.)

And the two women wear glasses (similar styles) and their face shapes resemble each other. I can feel that you want these two couples to be the same. And so do I! The woman in the first photo is wearing a skirt in the same style--and length--which is definitely 50s. I think you're ready for a hypothesis!

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.